East Liverpool, Ohio, on a map looks like so many cities located along many U.S. rivers: a small town that has probably seen better days, which has been forced to diversify when the dominant industry left town.
But the Ohio River town, did not follow the industrial script many of its brethren in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia did when they lost their most prominent employer.
East Liverpool was, and always will be known as “the Pottery Capital of the World” which, over more than a century, attracted the world’s leading pottery makers to take advantage of its rich pottery clay.
The city’s potteries became the U.S. center of ceramic toilet and table wares, making 67% of the national output from 1880 to 1950.
In 1887, East Liverpool housed 21 general ware potteries which employed 2,558. By 1923, 17 firms had 7,000 employees and operated 270 kilns, with $25 million in annual output.
East Liverpool once produced more than half of the U.S.’s annual ceramics output. Throughout East Liverpool’s ceramics history, there were more than 300 potteries.
But East Liverpool’s pottery industry had already begun its decline by roughly the mid-1960s or so. As with other industries, production moved to developing countries where labor costs were cheaper. This cost many jobs and, ultimately, population in the Ohio/West Virginia area, as people moved away in search of work.
Today, while still referred to as the pottery capital, with three potteries still operating in the area, East Liverpool has moved in several directions, with its transportation system allowing it to become something of a crossroads.
“You naturally have Ohio River access in the East Liverpool area, and you also have a number of major highways that pass right through East Liverpool,” said Bryce Custer, SIOR, CCIM, head of NAI Ohio River Corridor. NAI Ohio River Corridor has several real estate listings from East Liverpool, OH and Chester, West Virginia south throughout the Ohio River area.
The referenced highways bisecting East Liverpool include U.S. Route 30, along with Ohio State Routes 7, 11, 39 and 170.
“You’re certainly close to roadways, but you also have two Class One railroads in the area (CSX and Norfolk Southern), and you are less than an hour’s drive from Pittsburgh (Pa.) International Airport,” according to Custer.
NAI Ohio River Corridor is one largest commercial real estate companies in the Eastern Ohio/Northern West Virginia Panhandle, currently marketing various properties ranging from industrial riverfront terminals, office buildings and vacant land ready for construction.
NAI Ohio River Corridor recently closed on a one-acre surface parking lot in downtown East Liverpool, with sources saying the U.S. Postal Service could be relocating to a building to be constructed on the site.
Custer said the area around and including East Liverpool could become a hotspot for petrochemical-related companies looking to establish operations near Royal Dutch Shell’s ethane cracker, now under construction, roughly 15 driving miles and 12.5 nautical miles on the Ohio River northeast of the city.
In addition, East Liverpool is roughly one hour, 55 driving miles, or 40 nautical miles north of PTTGC’s proposed cracker at Dilles Bottom, Ohio.
Columbiana County, where East Liverpool is located, is home to 18 public and private river terminals, handling a variety of bulk and liquid cargoes.
The Port Authority of Columbiana County over the last four years has put considerable effort into marketing the terminals and river properties in general.
For additional information on commercial and industrial real estate in East Liverpool, Columbiana and surrounding counties contact Bryce Custer at (330) 418-9287 or [email protected]